Nigeria: Convicted fugitive from US Law confirmed to head Lagos State Safety Commission – premiumtimesng.com

Lagos Assembly confirms fugitive convicted for fraud in U.S. as head of state’s Safety Commission

“On the issue of his confirmation, we did not receive any petition from any quarter, nothing was forwarded to us.

“His confirmation was done in open plenary, if there was anything like a criminal record, it was not brought to our attention.” – Lagos State House of Assembly

The Lagos State House of Assembly confirmed the nomination of Hakeem Dickson as head of the state’s Safety Commission despite the nominee being a convicted fraudster and a fugitive, PREMIUM TIMES can report.

Mr. Dickson, a former Internal Auditor at the now defunct Nigeria Airways, was confirmed alongside three others – Jokotola Ogundinmu as the Chairman, Lagos State Audit Service Commission; and Ayo Adebusoye and Mobolaji Aare as members of the Lagos State Public Procurement Board.

On October 4 last year, Governor Akinwinmi Ambode nominated Mr. Dickson as the Director General of the Lagos State Safety Commission, an agency empowered to set safety standards in the socio-economic activities in the state.

Mr. Dickson, an ally of the governor, was nominated despite fleeing from a 24-month jail term in the U.S. after being convicted for credit card fraud.

According to Judge Dickinson Debevoise of a U.S. District Court, Mr. Dickson had not served the sentence handed to him since June 1992.

“For 20 years, Defendant (Mr. Dickson) successfully evaded all United States government efforts to locate and arrest him,” the judge said in a judgment published by Sahara Reporters, last year.

CONVICTED FOR FRAUD

On June 14, 1991, Mr. Dickson, who is also a U.S. citizen, was arrested on a complaint of bank and credit card fraud.

Four months later, he pleaded guilty to Count One of a four-count indictment which charged that from August 29, 1990, to September 10, 1990, he “knowingly and willfully executed and attempted to execute” a scheme to defraud a federally insured institution in violation of U.S. laws.

On June 25, 1992, Mr. Dickson was sentenced to 24-month jail term, to be followed by a term of supervised release of three years.

He was also ordered to repay $14,400.

The judge fixed August 3, 1992 for his voluntary surrender, despite opposition from the U.S. government, the plaintiff in the suit.

“The government had urged at sentencing that Defendant be remanded forthwith or at least surrender to the Bureau of Prisons no later than the following Monday, June 29, 1992,” the judge said.

“The court noted that while on bail Defendant returned on three occasions after being given permission to leave the country.

“The Court also took account of Defendant’s wish to spend more time with his one-year-old son, who suffered severe medical problems. Thus the August 3, 1992, surrender date.”

But on August 3, 1992, Mr. Dickson was nowhere to be found in the U.S., forcing the judge to revoke his bail and issue a warrant for his arrest.

Twenty years later, on January 27, 2012, Mr. Dickson, filed a motion seeking to adjust his sentence of 24 months incarceration in the U.S. by claiming that he had already served 17 months on the same sentence in a Lagos prison.

In his motion, Mr. Dickson claimed that a series of events after his sentencing, preceded by violent clashes between Muslims and Christians in Lagos, forced him to disobey the August 3 surrender date.

“During these clashes, two of Defendant’s sisters were killed and the family home was burned to the ground,” the judge quoted Mr. Dickson as claiming, in his judgment dated May 12, 2012.

“Following his sentencing Defendant returned to Lagos to bury his sisters, assess the damage to his father’s house and to take his mother for treatment.

“When Defendant arrived in Lagos, he was arrested at the airport and was told that since he was convicted in the United States he would also serve time in Nigeria. He was retained in custody until December 10, 1993, a total of 17 months.”

NO RECORD IN NIGERIAN PRISONS

PREMIUM TIMES’ investigations, in October last year, showed that the Nigerian Prisons Services does not have any record of Mr. Dickson serving a jail time in a Nigerian prison between 1992 and 1993.

“There is no name like that in our record,” a top Prisons source told this newspaper at the time.

“We checked both our Lagos and Abuja records.”

Francis Enobore, Nigerian Prisons’ spokesperson, said an individual convicted overseas and being transferred to Nigeria would be accompanied by his biodata and other relevant documents.

2 Comments on “Nigeria: Convicted fugitive from US Law confirmed to head Lagos State Safety Commission – premiumtimesng.com”

The Lagos State government is morally and duty-bound to immediately verify Mr. Dickson’s record with the US State Department or other relevant Body, and take appropriate action immediately.The integrity of the State, the ruling party AND Nigeria is at stake and on trial.

Transparency and consistency in upholding moral standards by public officers are not at all negotiable and must not be compromised, otherwise the positive change we all truly demand and deserve in this country will continue to be a mirage, a despicable and unacceptable assault and affront on the ordinary citizen’s intelligence and sense of propriety.
Let the Lagos State governor and house of assembly rise to the occasion, and do what is right and proper.

I was shocked to read the imbecilic and shameful pronouncement of the Lagos State House of Assembly: that the body is unaware of Dickson’s criminal history.

Now that it knows, Governor Ambode would, hopefully, cut whatever links that bind him to the man and drop him.

Far too many crooks: certificate forgers, escape-from-justice artists, credit card fraudsters … populate the ranks of those in high government positions AT ALL LEVELS in Nigeria many of whom were fellow travellers in earlier years that it confirms the views of millions in and outside Nigeria that the country is not suitable for a presidential form of government.

Why?

The three supposed arms of government are a sham! They are NOT independent of each other to MOST extent but in fact feed off each other in a sort of scratch-my-back-I-scratch-yours cooperation to loot the country’s wealth even though there are a very very few politicians who may not be cesspool material.

How can states’ assemblies be able to achieve their role in the tripartite system of governance when most are sponsored and often bribed by the same group they are supposed to check? How can legislators who do not possess even the [now] low requisite high school education and HAVE NO IDEA of what their duties and responsibilities are but get smuggled into office? Most assembly men see governors as their masters. In a system that is supposed to yield governors who would aspire to be senators, senators aspire to be governors.

Follow the money and you’ll get to a major flaw that shows the unsuitability of the presidential system for Nigeria.

NIGERIA’S SOCIO-, ECONOMIC OR POLITICAL PROBLEMS WILL NEVER BE SOLVED UNDER A PRESIDENTIAL SYSTEM.